Project Natal was first announced on June 1, 2009 at E3 2009. Microsoft said that over one thousand software development kits began shipping to game developers that same day.[2] It is scheduled to be released in time for Christmas 2010[3]. Reports say that it will be released in October 2010.[4] Although official pricing has not yet been announced, one source has claimed the price will be US$149 when purchased as a standalone accessory or US$100 when purchased together with the Xbox 360 Arcade bundle[5]. Various other sources have placed it at anywhere between GB£30 (~US$50)[6] and 1,499 SEK (~US$200)[7] for the stand-alone accessory.

It is rumored that the launch of Natal will be accompanied with the release of a new Xbox 360 console (as either a new retail configuration[8][9] or a significant design revision[10]). Microsoft has dismissed the reports in public, and has repeatedly emphasized that it will be fully compatible with all Xbox 360 consoles. Microsoft indicates that it considers it to be a significant initiative, as fundamental to the Xbox brand as Xbox Live,[11] and with a launch akin to that of a new Xbox console platform.[12] Project Natal has even been referred to as a “new Xbox” by Microsoft CEOSteve Ballmer at a speech for the Executives’ Club of Chicago.[13][14] When asked if the introduction will extend the time before the next-generation console platform is launched (historically about 5 years between platforms),[15] Microsoft corporate vice president Shane Kim reaffirmed that the company believes that the life cycle of the Xbox 360 will last through 2015 (10 years).[11]

This one makes so much sense…

A boat docked in a tiny Mexican fishing village.

A tourist complimented the local fishermen

on the quality of their fish and asked

how long it took him to catch them.

“Not very long.” they answered in unison.

“Why didn’t you stay out longer and catch more?”

The fishermen explained that their small catches were
sufficient to meet their needs and those of their families. “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”
“We sleep late, fish a little, play with our children,
and take siestas with our wives.
In the evenings, we go into the village to see our friends, have a few drinks, play the guitar, and sing a few songs. We have a full life.”

The tourist interrupted,
“I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you!
You should start by fishing longer every day.
You can then sell the extra fish you catch.
With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat.”

“And after that?”

“With the extra money the larger boat will bring,

you can buy a second one and a third one

and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers.

Instead of selling your fish to a middle man,

you can then negotiate directly with the processing plants

and maybe even open your own plant.

You can then leave this little village and move to Mexico City , Los Angeles , or even New York City !

From there you can direct your huge new enterprise.”

“How long would that take?”

“Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years.” replied the tourist.

“And after that?”

“Afterwards? Well my friend, that’s when it gets really interesting, ” answered the tourist, laughing. “When your business gets really big, you can start buying and selling stocks and make millions!”

“Millions? Really? And after that?” asked the fishermen.

“After that you’ll be able to retire,
live in a tiny village near the coast,
sleep late, play with your children,
catch a few fish, take a siesta with your wife
and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying your friends.”

“With all due respect sir, but that’s exactly what we are doing now. So what’s the point wasting twenty-five years?” asked the Mexicans.
And the moral of this story is:
Know where you’re going in life….
you may already be thereJ

~Frank Sinatra (1915 – 1998) Americansinger and actor.

37 previously unseen photographs of the Beatles have been found after being forgotten for nearly half a century. Photographer Paul Berriff captured the photographs during a Beatles tour in 1963 and 1964 when he was just 16 years old, but the negatives ended up being forgotten for over 45 years along with 850 other negatives.

The photographs were created using two film cameras: a Rolleiflex and a 35mm Nikon, the latter of which he still uses to this day. Berriff went on to photograph many of the most recognizable artists and groups in the music industry (i.e. The Rolling Stones and Queen), and won a BAFTA award as a documentary filmmaker.

Berriff has set up a website called The Beatles Hidden Gallery where he is selling prints of the photographs. Only 49 prints of each photograph will be made.

~Albert Pine (English author, d.1851)

Google’s Pac-Man logo cost $120 mn to economy

Google’s Pac-Man logo led to almost five million wasted hours and cost the economy about $120 million, an analyst estimated.

Google apparently had about 505 million users Friday when the Pac-Man doodle went live. The game took up 4,819,352 hours of employee time and cost the economy a whopping $120,483,800, said Tony Wright, founder of Rescue Time, which is a tool that helps businesses to measure how time and attention was being spent.

‘For that same cost, you could hire all 19,385 Google employees. That includes Larry (Page) and Sergey (Brin), right down to the janitors. You could hire them for six weeks – imagine what you could build with that army of manpower,’ The Telegraph quoted from Wright’s blog post.

Internet users were happy to find the Pac-Man doodle on the search engine’s home page. It was to mark the 30th anniversary of game’s release.

The game could be played by clicking ‘Insert coin’. It was online for 48 hours before Google went back to its usual logo.

The search engine giant was ‘overwhelmed, but not surprised’ by the reception given to the Pac-Man doodle, said Marissa Mayer, vice president of user experience at Google.

Pac-Man did NOT lead to $120 lost productivity, false arguments lead to false conclusions

The media is awash over the last few days about a piece of analysis from RescueTime, a time management firm that claimed that U.S. workers lost $120 million in productivity due to Google replacing their logo on Friday with a version of Pac-Man. Their argument goes something like this, the average amount of time spent searching on Google increased on Friday because workers were playing Pac-Man rather than working. This lost time can be converted into a dollar value by multiplying the productivity per hour.

Probably the biggest reason why this argument is incorrect is the assumption of substitution. This analysis assumes that the time the worker spent playing Pac-Man substituted for productive work. It ignores the fact that workers don’t spend all of their hours at the office at work and so a certain percent of time everyday is spent on non-work activities whether that be lunch, talking around the water cooler, playing with their new I-pad, chatting with friends or any other of the countless activities available while we are at the office. The Pac-Mac entertainment could easily have substituted for other non-work activities which, of course, were not measured. Imagine someone has just spent 10 minutes gobbling ghosts and then realizes that they still have to do their work, they will either spend less time that work day on other non-work activities (water cooler, I-pad…) or they will often stay later. That is, the author’s false argument about substitution also extends to the fact that the calculation ignores that many workers will end up spending a little more time at work in order to finish what they needed to accomplish that day. Project work is less dependent on hours and more depending on achieving milestones. Workers who are able to avail themselves to Pac-Mac games in the middle of the day may often be on project work and thus find themselves having to stay a little later to complete the work.

So, who was the winner in this Pac-Mac/Google controversy? Rescue Time of course, for getting fantastic publicity by writing a very cool, but also incorrect story. The media also won by getting people to read and discuss a fun, but misleading article.

Japanese researchers are developing a disc that could hold over 25,000GB of data per disk thanks to a new technique for storage.

Researchers in Japan have found a new material for optical storage that is easy to manufacture, safe to use, and it could increase disk capacity by over 1,000 times over single-layer Blu-ray discs.

To put it in perspective, a standard blank DVD can hold 4.7GB, while a dual-layer disk that most Hollywood movies use can hold twice that. An average Blu-ray single-layer disc can hold 25GB, while dual-layer discs can store 50GB. The Blu-ray Disk Association recently announced that there would be a new series of Blu-rays discs coming that could store up to 128GB of data per disc, something that has been hailed as a breakthrough in data storage. These new disk would be able to contain 25,000GB of data, or 25TB per disk.

A new synthetic material would coat the discs in a metal film. In darkness, the metal remains black and can conduct electricity. When struck by light, the material transforms into a brown semi-conductor. The light itself would act as an on-off switch.

The material is a new crystalline form of titanium oxide that Shin-ichi Ohkoshi, the lead researcher, described in an interview as a being “promising as a material for a next-generation optical storage device.”

Different colors reflect light differently, and each difference can be used to store new sets of information. The researchers have created the material in particles that are between 5 and 20 nanometers, or a five-billionth to 20-billionth of a meter in diameter. Using the smallest particle, the disks could hold over 1,000 times as much as a Blu-ray disc by reflecting light in different ways.

Assuming that the proper reading and writing equipment is also developed, the new synthetic metal could be a giant leap in optical storage. Surprisingly for such a leap in technology, neither cost nor availability would be an issue.

“You don’t have to worry about procuring rare metals. Titanium oxide is cheap and safe, already being used in many products ranging from face powder to white paint,” Ohkoshi said.

No word on when these new discs might reach the public, but Ohkoshi says that they will soon begin talking to private-sector companies about commercializing the technology.

About AB

i think there 4 i am…….

I ain’t gonna be just a face in the crowd, You R gonna hear my voice.

My philosophy is plain n simple. I believe lyf is beautiful despite seeing the worst of ppl n hell of injustice. Dats cuz in all that tym I waz trying to do justice to myself n made lyf worth living. I believe in being adaptable n independent without bickering about others’ faults.

I’m not a philosopher. Nor a preacher and I hate ppl who are lyk dat. I believe in the policy of live n let live. Dat goz for doz who trouble ppl n for doz who give uncalled fo advises.

Blogroll

Project Smile India's Blog
Project Smile India is a non-profit organization which donates new and previously owned stuffed animals, coloring books/crayons, small toys, children’s reading books and blankets, woolen sweaters to give to children in orphanages and elderly in old age

My Favourite Blog

Project Smile India
Project Smile India is a non-profit organization which donates new and previously owned stuffed animals, coloring books/crayons, small toys, children’s reading books and blankets, woolen sweaters to give to children in orphanages and elderly in old age ho

Sharing Plate. com
My name is Monica Puri Bangia. I live in Maplewood, NJ. I was born in Delhi, famous for its Northern Indian cuisine. I studied at the French Culinary Institute in NYC. My personal passion is Italian.

There's something about me….
Queen Elizabeth in past life, now a Dentist by profession, social activist by choice and suffering from inherent sexiness !!!